Why Taiwan is the Best Place to live for Digital Nomads

 Why Taiwan is the Best Place to live for Digital Nomads

Because of the end of the pandemic, people are looking to travel again. A digital nomad is somebody who travels while doing some type of job that has to do with technology. If you’re a digital nomad you know that already. In this article, I’m gonna be talking about different reasons why Taiwan is the best place for digital nomads to travel in

Internet

The Internet is super fast in most places. You can park yourself over at a Starbucks or another coffee shop called Louisa coffee, and do all the work that you need to do. I would say that most Taiwanese people are pretty quiet anyway, so if you go to some of these places you’ll probably have a quiet working environment. Recently I’ve seen some places that have co-working spaces, as well as some office space for digital nomads specifically. No matter where you go though, the Internet is super fast and super dependable.

Even if you’re operating your digital nomad services off of the Internet on your cell phone, which I wouldn’t recommend, you’ll be all right. The Internet even on your cell phone is super fast

Cost of living

Taipei is pretty expensive relative to the other cities in Taiwan. You can go over to Kaohsiung which is the second biggest city in Taiwan. There are a lot of things to see there, and it’s a little bit slower paced than Taipei. If you go to the middle of Taiwan or the other cities that are in the south of Taipei, you can probably have some cheap living.

Taipei has the best transit system. And I would say that the Taipei Metro is probably the cheapest metro that I have ever traveled on. You can go ahead and check it out for yourself though. You could probably get by on spending less than 10 bucks a day eating out. Of course, if you’re going to be having those Western fast foods, then it’s going to be expensive. If you can take the time to learn a little bit of Chinese however, you could probably just eat a small lunch box, and it’s worth your money

Visa

As a Canadian, I was able to come to Taiwan with no problem on a tourist visa. The tourist visa lasts for three months which is pretty standard I would say. After that, you’re probably gonna have to get a job. I’ll cover a little bit of the ins and outs with regards to a job as well later, and the contracts, etc. Three months I would say is probably a good amount of time for you to explore Taiwan. And recently, actually as far as the pandemic goes, they have been shortening the period of quarantine for about three days. So that would probably be enough time for you to just kind of get your bearings, learn about Taiwan online, and then go ahead and explore it for yourself. 

But as far as the visa goes, it’s pretty easy to get, a visitors visa is OK. Probably at the end of the pandemic though, you’re gonna have to get a visa that has to do with business, or maybe visit a relative. When Taiwan does open up, however, then you’re gonna be able to travel freely with no problems

Getting a job while you freelance 

A lot of people will teach English while they’re in Taiwan. Usually, the contracts are for a year, but if you don’t feel like you want to finish the contract you can quit the contract after six months. As far as jobs go, teaching in Taiwan is a pretty good job, just to kind of have something part-time. Usually, in some of the smaller schools, you’ll be working 20 to 24 hours a week, and that actually might be good to sustain your living abroad lifestyle. A lot of people, what they do is they teach English, and then they work on something else. I’ve seen people who open up a restaurant after they teach English.

For me, if I was going to further my digital nomad career, I would probably teach English as a part-time gig, and then probably quit when it’s necessary. You don’t wanna quit after maybe a month, because you probably won’t even get your salary. There are some perks to staying around for your whole contract though. Obviously, you’ll probably get a bonus at the end of the completion of the contract. A lot of people don’t think that they’re going to be teaching English for a long time, but then they end up staying in Taiwan too. Maybe this might be your sign that you might need to visit Taiwan, and then who knows maybe you might stay here

Bonus 

One of the mistakes that I made before I came to Taiwan, was not knowing how to speak Chinese at all. If you want to get some good deals with regards to food, maybe going to hotels, it might be better for you to speak some Chinese. Obviously in Taipei, that probably isn’t that much of an issue. I would say probably 60 to 70% of young people, speak some semblance of English. If you are going to be going to a more traditional area then you might probably want to use Google translate and say some Chinese phrases so that your communication is clear and doesn’t get misconstrued.

All in all, I would say that Taiwan is a super place to visit, and to work. A lot of foreigners will probably stay here for a long time. I’ve known some foreigners that have been staying here for 10 maybe 15 years, maybe even forever. If you do stay here for five years with a working visa, then you can apply for a permanent resident card. That might be an interesting way to go because then you can use Taiwan as your home base and then maybe travel around different places in Asia. It’s up to you. For me, I think that Taiwan has been a good go, and I recommend it